A small forwarder that answers the phone.
Eleven people, one office, one lane done well. We are not trying to become a global network — we are trying to be the company you stop worrying about.
How we started
Sinwo Trade was set up in 2016 by three people who had spent the previous decade inside larger forwarders, watching accounts get handed between coordinators until nobody could say where a container was without opening four systems. The premise was narrow and has not changed: take fewer accounts, keep the same coordinator on each one, and put the customs work in the same room as the freight work so the two stop blaming each other.
What that means in practice
Every account has a named coordinator and a named backup, both of whom you meet at onboarding. Documentation review happens before pickup rather than after arrival, which is unglamorous and is the single reason our clearance query rate sits where it does. Invoices are reconciled once, at the end, instead of arriving in instalments as accessorials surface.
We stay deliberately small on the sales side. If we cannot service a lane properly we say so, and we would rather lose a quote than take on volume we will handle badly in October.
Licensing and membership
We hold a customs broker licence and operate as an NVOCC on the transpacific trade. Cargo liability and errors-and-omissions cover are in place; certificates are provided at onboarding and on request at any time afterwards.
Where we sit
One office, two gateways, and origin partners we have used long enough to trust with a same-day pickup.
- Head office
- San Jose, California
- US gateways
- Oakland · Long Beach
- Primary origins
- East & South China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam
- Team
- 11 people
- Operating since
- 2016
- Hours
- Mon–Fri, 08:00–18:00 PT
Want to see whether we are a fit?
A twenty minute call and your last quarter of shipping data is enough to know.